First it was book and TV critics …

… now big-city newspapers, alternative weeklies, even magazines are cutting their film critics. As with the loss of the other reviewers, it means the independent art work, the one with no big-budget corporate marketing behind it, will have a harder time finding an audience.

CTA TBD

… now big-city newspapers, alternative weeklies, even magazines are cutting their film critics. As with the loss of the other reviewers, it means the independent art work, the one with no big-budget corporate marketing behind it, will have a harder time finding an audience.

Jerome Weeks is the Senior Arts Reporter/Producer for KERA. Previously at The Dallas Morning News, he was the book columnist for 10 years and the drama critic for 10 years before that. His writing has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Salon, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, American Theatre and Men’s Vogue magazines. View more about Jerome Weeks.

I don’t think so. The independent press is growing as the mainstream press falls. For me I’ve never seem more improvement in the media than now. And its all in the Indie media. The dinosaurs cater to their advertisers over their readers. Many indie media sources do the opposite and place readers first. And it shows. There seems to be MORE places for indie reviews. And the reviews are livelier, fresher, and more honest .
And there seems to be more places to showcase indie works. Example – Youtube. I made and then posted two videos of my music. And I did it all THIS WEEK.
And within two days from posting the first one, I got comment. Could you do that at any other time in history?

This added note. There is now a review website in Dallas that guarantees a review for all artists of all kinds with some of the toughest reviews anywhere. And there are no ads. Your independent filmmaker has a guaranteed review with no back room politics about who gets a review and who doesn’t. And there are no ad sponsors so no ad pressure to influence review fairness. So again I say it is better now than ever.